Chapter 9: Futurelab

Chapter 9 focused on the issues concerned with gaming. In the chapter in the common objections section, the question of how gaming ties into the curriculum was discussed. The website I explored helped to answer that question by providing results from a year-long research project on the subject matter.  I looked at the Futurelab website, specifically the "Teaching with Games" portion of the site. This "Teaching with Games" was actually a study done by Futurelab that lasted for one year and explored the place of mainstream computer games in the classroom. This website outlines the benefits, complications, and findings of certain games. It also provided a list of games that were used as well as a small review on each one, which I thought was very interesting and useful for the teacher. Overall I think this website is quite informative on the findings of the "Teaching with Games", which in turn provided very informative data and resources for games in the classroom.

Chapter 6: SecretBuilders

In chapter 6 virtual worlds was the topic of interest. When I was reading this chapter it seemed like a slightly controversial topic. Personally, I saw that there were valid points for both support and disagreement on the issue. In regards to virtual worlds I explored a site called SecretBuilders. This is a virtual world website designed for children ages 5-14. On this website students can do a variety of activities, such as: children will explore virtual lands, undertake quests, play games, maintain a home, nurture a pet, and interact with their friends. The site offers many games and quests that focus on specific literature that is often used in classrooms, and the idea is that students will learn the literature better by fully immersing themselves in it via the website. There are also sections of this website that are available for use of parents and teachers. I like that this site allows parents and teachers to connect with the student, so the site is being constantly monitored, so thing such as cyber bullying are less likely to occur and the majority of the focus can remain on the tasks at hand.  In the chapter cyber bullying and privacy and safety were the main opposition to virtual world, so the fact that this site is so secure is quite reassuring and supportive of student learning.

Chapter 5: Alexa

Chapter five's focus was on social networks. This is something that most students are familiar with, which makes it an incredibly useful tool in education as long as it is used in an appropriate manner. Chapter 5 discussed the need for students to possess 21st-century skills in the workplace. Using social networking sites can only help to further develop these skills in students, which will greatly help to increase their needed knowledge base for jobs in the future.  I specifically  looked at a site called Alexa, which is a site I had not previously heard of, let alone had any experience with using it. First, Alexa is quite different from other social networking sites, such as Myspace and Facebook. Rather than focusing on keeping in touch with friends and staying up on the latest music, Alexa focuses on providing users with information on a multitude of websites available on the internet. It provides the user with information on how popular a particular site is, who's the creator, who owns it, or even just to find new websites. Alexa sorts websites by popularity so it is rather easy to navigate. Alexa also has a what's hot tab that works in real time to provide the user with the latest new, videos, and popular items on the internet. You must register to use the site, but it is free and you have the option of accessing it through your personal Facebook account. Overall this would be a useful site to use in the classroom.

Chapter 2: FCC KIDS Zone

Another website I looked at that was supported by Chapter 2 was the FCC Kids Zone. This is a website sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission. The site serves to educate students on several different types of everyday technology like cable, cell phones, internet, etc. The site features a history sections that allows students to discover the background stories on the aforementioned technologies. This site also helps the student to become more familiar with the FCC and its purpose. A nice feature of this site is in addition to the introductory pages, it features three pages separated by grade level. This allows students to find appropriate material for their age. These individual pages feature a sort of FAQ set-up. Again, everything is focused on technology and how it originated. This would be a great website to allow students to explore, so they could be more educated on how their favorite cell phones were created and why they were as well. Overall I think this website is good instructional tool to use in providing students with a brief history of the technologies they are regularly using.

Chapter 2: Poll Everywhere

In chapter two a variety of ways in which educators can incorporate cell phones into the classroom were discussed, along with the positives and negatives of using cell phones in the classroom. One specific way that was mentioned was using cell phones to poll the class. This is made easy through the use a certain websites. In particular I looked at the functionality of a website called Poll Everywhere.


This site is free for groups of thirty or less, which is perfect size for a classroom. This site works by allowing someone to pose a question and then giving them a code or number in which to send a text. The person who poses the question then shares the number with the audience, and the audience then responds with their answer. Poll Everywhere then organizes the answers to provide data to the person who posed the question. This certainly beats having students simply just raise their hands to poll the class. I really like this website. I think this is an inventive way to keep students interested and engaged in the learning process, while also keeping their attention on the subject at hand. This also provides the educator with an opportunity to stress proper etiquette for cell phone use, which is a key benefit discussed in the chapter.

HTML

Here's my website!

SMART-10

Some of the characteristics of a model digital citizen include: respecting yourself, respecting others, respecting other's privacy, respect of rules and laws that come from a source off the internet, follows codes of conduct, and does not attempt to cheat or plagiarize.

As for students and adults I know I would say overall they are not meeting the definition. The category that I most often see them failing in is respecting others. The internet is a place where cyber-bullying has run rampant. I think it is a problem that has become so commonplace that it often times is not thought of as a big deal. This is an area that I see that needs vast and immediate improvement.

Many prosecutors are charging students who participate in sexting with felonies. What do you think of this practice, and how would you handle the situation at your school?

 

Clearly sexting is something that should not be tolerated, however, I do not think bringing felony charges against children is at all productive. I believe this issue should be handled at the school and family levels rather than the law intervening. I think students need to be educated, and when they are caught sexting, along with their punishment, they should take classes or seminars about sexting and proper use of texting. I think this could also work as a preventative measure. I just don't believe law enforcement is the right approach on this issue.

SMART-9

The majority of my experience of accessing and viewing photographs and videos online comes from Facebook and YouTube. I generally visit these sites at least once a day and scan through both photos and videos.  I have also used Google images to download photos for presentations and other school related functions.

 

Again my experience in uploading and sharing photographs comes from Facebook. I take quite a bit of pictures so I post them very regularly. I have also used PhotoBucket to host my images at times. I also have a YouTube account where I have posted several videos that I have made for academic classes during my undergraduate career.

Explain how the concept of the creative commons impacts teacher and student use of phtographs and video clips created by someone else.

 

The Creative Commons is an international initiative aimed at providing a mechanism for clear and unambiguous licensing of content that does not automatically assume or require commercialization of the content. Creative Commons licenses allow creators to choose which rights they wish to protect and which they do not and, consequently, simplifies the process of making new content available without the default restrictions imposed by copyright law. Licenses can be customized in a variety of ways; for example, creators can choose whether or not they want to be acknowledged or if they will allow adaptation of the work, and they can choose to control commercial uses of the work. More than 38 countries have customized variations of the Creative Commons licenses that are designed to reflect contract and copyright law differences.

Creative Commons will give students and teachers a more clear way to understand if certain videos and photographers are available for use since the creator can precisely identify what their works may be used for.

SMART-8

A blog is a writing tool based online that presents entries with the most recent appearing first. They support text and image and can be the length of the author's choosing. A blog also accepts comments from other users on the original entry. They can be easily moderated and there are many free sites available on the internet. Blog readers may also subscribe to me notified every time an entry is posted to a particular blog through and RSS feed. In the class room blogs can easily be used as response journal in book studies. This allows students to easily publish their thoughts and reflections somewhere that is easily accessible to their teacher and classmates.

A wiki is an online web tool that allows users to add, remove, or edit content. A personal one can be created rather easily online and many are free. These wikis can be individualized by adding graphics to make them look unique. Many sites allow anyone to make changes, but there are some who do limit who can actually change the information. Wikis are very beneficial in the classroom during class projects. Students can easily add photos and information from both school at home, which makes collaboration very easy.

A web-based word processor is much the same as Microsoft Word without the hassle of purchasing or downloading a particular software, because it is all available online. Users may create, edit, save, and upload documents in these word processors. It is also possible to then publish files that have been created to the internet. Many of these word processors now support online collaboration among its users. A good function for this in the classroom is in round-robin writing. Students can each write on line of the story and the next can add on. This allows students to be creative and engaged while also practicing necessary writing skills.

Prior to this class I have had experience with blogging and wikis, but not with the web based word processor. In early high school I used to keep a personal blog and I used the wiki in my introduction to educational technology class to edit standards as an entire class. I never used the web0based word processor, because I have always owned Word and never saw a need for it.

SMART-7

Personally, I believe that gaming can be beneficial in the classroom. This is  great way to make learning fun and interactive for students, which should always be a goal in education. Gaming is quickly becoming more and more popular. People of the business, military, medical, and publishing professions are utilizing this for instruction opportunities, so I think that education should be the next workplace to adopt this engaging tool. It is not something that should be used every second of the day, but in moderation I think this could be quite appealing and beneficial to students during the learning process.

 

I think having children develop their own minigames in the classroom could be  a great way to incorporate gaming into the learning environment. First, students can work together in groups to make these which will not only help to enhance the knowledge of the subject they are designing their game around but it also helps them improve their teamwork skills. Allowing students to do this also helps students to be more invested and engaged in the subject being taught, which is always a positive in education. Overall, I think gaming can positively benefit the classroom if used in the right ways.

SMART-6

I have visited a virtual world. I cannot remember the name of it, but I took a class online at Pellissippi and we used the virtual world to have class discussions and meet with the professor as needed. Personally I did not care for it. I had taken other online classes and the class was able to function without, so it kind of seemed like a waste of time to me, but I guess it was okay for people who are in to those kind of things.

I do not think I would ever use virtual worlds in my classroom. I cannot see any real use for them. I don't really like the idea of having students interact with other people that way. I think this very easily can open children up to cyber bullying, which is already a problem. Another issue I have with virtual worlds is that it allows children to spend too much time on the computer. I just do not believe it is healthy for a person to spend that amount of time at the computer, especially at a young age. Overall I just do not see any real positive function for the use of virtual worlds in the classroom.

SMART-5

I have been using social networking sites for a number of years. Right now I solely use Facebook. This site allows me to keep up to date with all of my friends, especially those that do not live near by or that I do not get to see often. While I do love Facebook, I often find myself wasting a large amount of time on the website. At times this has been quite distracting, especially when I have other obligations, such as homework. It also at time can be quite intrusive and provide too much information about people you don't really know. However, I think the keeping up with friends and what's going on in their lives is worth the negatives. I am glad I have the opportunity to use social networking sites.

I think social networking will make major progress in the learning environment in the future. Student can use social networking sites to communicate with partner schools around the world. I could also there being social networking sites for specific schools , so that there would be a secure site to use in the classroom to keep track of all your students. It would also be useful in using the sites with distance learning, so if students were unable to be in class they could keep up with the happenings of the classroom. Overall, I think there are big things in store for social networking in the learning environment in the future.